


Gallantry & Charm

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Bright Young Things
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Kissing, M/M, Romance, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 04:32:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: When Ginger leaves England and mopes in some little bar in Paris, Miles Maitland finds in him a familiar face.





	Gallantry & Charm

Ginger sat in a smokey little room in Paris, and he drank.

He was not much of a one for drinking, really – he’d never managed to get very good at it, despite rather wishing he _could_ be, and so he took little sips of his whiskey and winced at the sharp, throat-punching tang of each one, and drank a good deal of his tonic water in between. There was no sense in it, he mused, with distaste. He’d never be able to drink the stuff quickly enough to actually feel the _effects_ , beyond a little tipsiness, but beer was even worse.

He’d paid off his debtors before he’d taken the train, and it had been so—

So easy.

He hated how easy it had been, to just cut away from Nina and walk away, but he’d never belonged with her anyway, like they were from two separate photographs: Adam, Nina, and the boy, in one photograph, and Ginger, clumsily taped over Adam. He didn’t belong in the picture. He wished he did – he wished he belonged in _any_ picture, but he didn’t.

He’d paid off his debtors, and left, and felt so utterly, unutterably empty, and yet not so differently to how he’d felt for what felt like years, decades, _centuries_.

He sipped at his whiskey.

Gagged.

Set it back down.

“Don’t I _know_ you?”

Ginger looked up, and he met the gaze of a very brightly painted man, about his own age – although looking a good deal better for it than Ginger – with shadow at his eyes and wax red on his lips, his hair coiffed up away from his face, and a tight, red suit that was bespangled in places.

“Er,” he said, awkwardly, “I don’t think so—”

“No, no,” the man said, in English, of course, not French, but that was odd, wasn’t it? “No, no, I _know_ you.” He waggled a finger, of which the nails were painted a red to match his suit. “You’re… Goodness, ah, no, I’ll get it, not Rosemary? Thyme?”

“What?”

“ _Ginger!”_

He was swaying, the man, and Ginger felt himself swallow, glancing around to see if anyone was looking in their direction, but nobody did. This was a dark sort of place where nobody looked at anybody else, and he felt put on the spot, uncertain, but before he could say anything, the man stopped swaying, and dropped.

He was warm where he dropped into Ginger’s lap, sitting sideways on his knees, and Ginger could smell the alcohol on his breath: not whiskey, like he was drinking, but something fruity and bright, something mixed with other things, that you not even _taste_ the drink…

“You,” said the man, pushing a pretty finger against Ginger’s chest, “are _Ginger_.”

“I don’t think we’ve met,” Ginger said.

“No, no, but I’ve seen you… I did see you. Once.” The other hand came up to cup his cheek, and he looked at the man’s face, at the make-up adorning his features, his brightly shining earrings, his curls, and he felt a sort of hot embarrassment burn in his chest as he tried not to swallow. What was he supposed to do? Shove him off? But he was drunk, he’d fall ( _and_ , a little voice Ginger didn’t want to admit to hearing whispered from the back of his mind, _he was warm_ ). “I used to know… Er, Adam, Adam, and Nina, I—” He must have seen something change in Ginger’s face, because his face fell. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “They’re not…?”

“No, no,” Ginger said hurriedly, shaking his head. “No, they’re… They’re alright. They.” He stopped. Swallowed. Became aware that in his hurry to assure the stranger Adam and Nina were alright, he’d laid his hand on his hip, but drunk as he was, he’d not noticed: Ginger withdrew it. “They have a little boy. Back in London.”

“Oh,” the young man said, and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. Nice man, that Adam… Dim, you know, but so lovely. And what about you, Ginger?”

“I’m sorry,” Ginger said, “I don’t know your name.”

“ _Miles_ ,” the man said. “Miles Maitland. You’re charmed, I’m sure.”

“I—” Ginger stopped, and felt his brow furrow: Miles tilted his head to the side, and he _beamed_ , showing pearly-white teeth, and pink lips, soft lips. He wasn’t like a woman, really: he was handsome, and his voice was low and resonant, but the makeup did add something, did a sort of handsome thing to him, a pretty thing, like modern art. “You’re drunk,” he said.

“Oh, yes,” Miles said. “As a _fish_.”

“Do fish get drunk?”

“ _I_ do,” Miles said, and his gaze flitted down, his hand shifting where it touched Ginger’s face, his thumb sliding over the thin fuzz of hair that had just begin to grow over his lip. He flinched, his eyes closing. “Did you always have this little mark?”

“Yes,” Ginger said hoarsely.

“It’s _darling_ ,” Miles said softly, and Ginger opened his eyes and stared at him.

“What?”

“I always thought that moustache of yours was quite fetching, but this little mark… How _do_ people resist kissing it, Ginger?”

“I don’t think they do,” Ginger mumbled. His cheeks were burning hot, and he wondered, somehow, if this was all a dream, and he’d fallen asleep – it all seemed a bit bizarre, a bit strange, a bit off. Perhaps it was all… All a dream.

“Oh, jolly good,” Miles said brightly. “Then neither shall I!”

He leaned in, his lips brushing the very top of Ginger’s lip, catching over the birthmark, and Ginger closed his eyes, inhaling sharply, but Miles took the shift of his mouth for a want for more: his lips pressed lower, their noses brushing against one another as Miles’ tongue flicked against Ginger’s own. Even drunk, and clumsy, he was a good kisser, an eager, practised one, and Ginger gasped into his mouth.

Nina had never liked to kiss him. Nina had never liked to do anything with him, and that was rather how Ginger liked it too – he wanted to provide for her, wanted to be a husband, but he didn’t want all _that_ , not from her, but this, this was—

Miles drew back from him with a wet sound, his fingers cupping the sides of Ginger’s face, and he said, “Always suspected, you know. There’s a sort of tell, with men like us.” Every word was slurred, but for a moment, he seemed wonderfully concentrated, focused, seemed… _ascended_ , somehow.

Ginger felt like he was floating, and he watched as Miles reached back for the glass of whiskey, still with a good two measures in it, watched him bring the lip of it to his mouth. His elegant throat was bared by the lowcut collar of his outfit, and as he _gulped_ – without a flinch, not even a _worry_ – his throat shifted prettily.

“I’m the worst sort, you know,” Ginger blurted out, a bit desperately. “You don’t want me.” It was, bizarrely, the only thing he could think of to get the other man to change his mind.

Miles’ eyes were wide, and really quite lovely.

He laughed, and he leaned in, kissed the top of Ginger’s nose. “Don’t be silly,” he mumbled, and then slumped a little further, his body going limp.

“Miles?” Ginger asked, reaching up to pat the side of his cheek, but he was out of it… How much _had_ he had to drink? He must have been dreadfully drunk, really—

Ginger stood to his feet, and to start with he tried to put his arm under Miles’ shoulder, but the other man was _limp_ , and he wasn’t a big fellow, in any case, so Ginger just sort of hiked his arms underneath him and _lifted_ him. If he were staying very far away, it wouldn’t be possible at all, but he had a room upstairs, and he could manage carrying him up there. He’d put him to bed, wouldn’t he, and just…

Yes.

He could hardly leave the man sort of, out, not out here, and he’d _kissed_ him, he’d kissed—

Ginger’s shoulders were aching by the time he had ascended the stairs, and Miles sort of blinked awake, glancing blearily about. “What— Are you carrying me? Goodness, you _are_ an Adonis!”

“Can you stand?” Ginger asked as he set Miles down, his arms aching, and he rushed for his key, opening up his room. Miles was leaning on him, wrapped around his arm as Ginger closed the door and locked it behind them, and Miles giggled against his shoulder.

“Are you going to _ravage_ me, dearest?”

“What? No!” Ginger said, dragging Miles awkwardly toward his bed and pushing him down onto it, and he went for Miles’ shoes, unlacing them. He’d done this for Nina, a few times, when she’d been out with her friends, undone her shoes, when she’d come home… Nina had always laughed, but she’d never tried to touch him like Miles did, never brushed her fingers so affectionately through Ginger’s hair, or leaned clumsily in to try to kiss him. “Stop— _Stop_ it. Sit still!”

Miles did, leaning back on his hands and looking down at Ginger as if he was some fascinating specimen of manhood to which humanity had not previously been introduced. “Heavens,” he slurred, with delight, “so _commanding_.”

He set Miles shoes aside, and then went for the buttons of his spangled coat. When Miles went for _his_ clothes, he tried to unbutton his trousers, and Ginger yelped and slapped his hands.

“ _What_?” Miles whined, put-upon.

“I’m not going to— We’re not going to—” Ginger spluttered out, and drew Miles’ coat off, setting it aside. “You’re too drunk!”

“I’m _not_ ,” Miles said. “Your last name is Littlejohn, isn’t it? I bet your john is anything but—”

“ _No_ ,” Ginger said sternly, grabbing Miles by the wrist and pushing him down onto the bed, and Miles giggled and squirmed, looking up at Ginger with a flush on his cheeks, his painted lips parted, and Ginger felt a hot feeling in his stomach, twisting and eager… He retreated, and said, “You stay lying down.”

“Or what?” Miles asked. “You’ll _spank_ me?”

Ginger stared at him.

“You have the most _handsome_ blush,” Miles said, but he laid on his side, his cheek on one of Ginger’s pillows, and Ginger moved across the room, pouring out a glass of water and setting the jug on the nightstand for the morning, and dragging the curtains closed. “You will come to bed with me, won’t you?”

“I _told_ you,” Ginger said, unlacing his own shoes. “You’re too drunk. I might be a _cad_ , and a villain, and a—”

“You do think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” Miles asked, his eyes closed. “In any case, I shall be desperately cold alone in this bed, and I shall be awash with guilt if you sleep in an armchair or something. Please? _Pretty_ please? A plea as pretty as I am?” Ginger felt his lips twitch, and he moved toward the armchair, but Miles’ hand clumsily grabbed at the back of his shirt, and Ginger turned to look at him, his eyes wide open, now, and looking beseechingly up at him. “ _Please_ ,” Miles said. “I can’t bear to sleep alone.”

“I need my pyjamas,” Ginger said. “But— Fine. Alright. Fine.”

He thought, by the time he put his pyjamas on, that Miles would be asleep. He _seemed_ to be asleep, sprawled out in the bed, and Ginger worried if he was being naïve, or stupid, letting this mad, drunk, inverted stranger into his bed, but—

He didn’t know why. He didn’t.

But once he was into his pyjamas, he thought that Miles would have fallen asleep, because he was lying down, breathing evenly, relaxed, but when Ginger went to sit down, Miles grabbed for him once again, and drew him into the bed with him. Ginger came down clumsily, falling into the bed with him, and immediately, Miles _grabbed_ for him, and—

He and Nina had rarely slept in the same bed, and when they did, there was always a sort of gap between them. She didn’t want him touching him, and he didn’t really want to touch her, exactly, but _Miles_ , Miles, he grabbed and spidered about Ginger’s body, falling onto his chest and shoving his face against his chest.

And then, then he slept.

\--

The next morning, Miles Maitland awoke to a desperately, _painfully_ throbbing head, and he groaned softly, feeling the awful weight of what felt like several ton-heavy weights attached to the sides of his skull. This was not, in itself, unusual. He was wrapped around another body, a very warm body – this, again, was rather par for the course.

Somewhat unexpectedly, said body was clothed in silk pyjamas, and _he_ was still dressed himself. He did not find the tell-tale ache in his thighs, nor anywhere else: in fact, he felt quite unsullied, and he couldn’t shake the odd, needling sensation of disappointment. He didn’t remember much.

He’d been drinking with some lovely young things at the Riviera, but had left them, had gone into the De Jardin to see if George Ender was about… And those were mere fragments of memory, sort of half-remembered in fat little bursts, but after that, it was a sort of sea of blackness. He vaguely remembered hands on the backs of his thighs, being carried… up some stairs?

He opened his eyes, and was relived to find the curtains closed, the room comfortably dark.

He squinted at the face of the gentleman beneath him in the wan light that filtered in through the fabric of the curtain, painting the room in a reddish hue. He was a pleasant enough sort, handsome, with a hard jaw, a crop of nice dark hair, full lashes… A very light moustache, just at the beginnings, but growing over a red little mark over one side of the lip – what a romantic idea, a little birthmark like that. Right on the _mouth_.

“Oh,” he said softly, recognition coming to him as he thought back to Adam and Nina – and yes, yes, that was why he’d come upon him last night, wasn’t it? He’d recognised him, had rushed up to him, and then… more blackness, more blank space.

Ginger stirred underneath him, blinking blearily at Miles with handsome, sleepy brown eyes, and he sat hurriedly up, making Miles let out a grunted noise of complaint at the sudden shift of his aching, hungover head.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ginger cooed, and Miles stared through tired, dry eyes as Ginger reached for the glass at the side of the bed, bringing it up to Miles’ mouth. For a moment, stunned, Miles merely peered at it, but then Ginger’s hand came up to gently cup the back of his head, his fingers curling in Miles’ hair, and Miles opened his mouth and touched it to the lip of the glass. He drank a few swallows of blessedly cool water, and then a few more, before Ginger set the glass aside.

“You’re Ginger Littlejohn,” Miles said hoarsely. He was squinting, he was aware – dreadfully unattractive, but his eyes had never felt quite so full of little aches. It made him hurt so, to think of Adam and Nina, after so long away, abroad, after so long here in France – he thought of Agatha every day, but Adam and Nina had sort of faded into the background of his recognizance, until now.

“Yes, yes, that’s right,” Ginger said, looking at him with a sort of wince already tugging at his face. “Is your hangover very dreadful?”

“Quite dreadful,” Miles mumbled, reaching out and brushing the soft fuzz of hair on Ginger’s lip. “Did you always have this?”

“Yes,” Ginger said. “You asked last night. Just that I had a moustache, you know.” He was very stiff and uncertain, his eyes wide, and Miles pressed his thumb down slightly, dragging over it. It was just a colour on the skin – there was no raised bump to speak of.

“It’s simply _darling_ ,” Miles said softly. “Like a little X marking the spot to kiss. Don’t you think?”

Ginger shivered, and gave him a small, shy smile, his fingers brushing the back of Miles’ hand. “You did,” he said gently. “You don’t remember?”

“Oh, dashed sorry. Did I do anything else to you, handsome thing?”

“Erm, no,” Ginger said. “I wouldn’t let you. Not that you’re, no, not that you’re not handsome, or what… But you were drunk.”

“Oh,” Miles said, feeling a devastating fluttering of the heart that made him go over all light-headed. “How chivalrous of you.”

Ginger blushed, the red burning his high cheekbones, and he swallowed. “You said you could tell. That I didn’t… Women, that…”

“Oh, I always can,” Miles said softly. “What say you I find the treasure on the map, hm?”

“Yes,” Ginger said breathlessly, and Miles leaned in and kissed him, feeling Ginger’s pretty mouth open up beneath his own, inviting him in, inviting Miles to kiss him properly, and Miles did, kissed him soundly, softly. He leaned on him, and Ginger let out a little noise, a sharp little noise.

“Ginger?” he asked.

“Sorry,” the other man said, his tone embarrassed. “I carried you up the stairs last night, and my shoulders ache a bit. Just don’t lean on them, and—”

“Oh, turn over!” Miles said hurriedly, leaning back. “Turn over right now! On your belly, my dear, on your belly… Oh, you _poor_ thing, I am virtually an anvil!”

“You weren’t that heavy,” Ginger mumbled, but he hissed out his pleasure-pain as Miles gently brushed his fingers up over his shoulders, finding for the knotted spots and working them out. He was adept at this, after many such strong men, finding those aches and pains and soothing them away…

“You’re jolly good to spare my feelings,” Miles said, “but even dear and handsome men oughtn’t carry _beasts_ like me up a flight of stairs, goodness! Goodness, what are you missing? A lovely face, a strong set of arms, and such _nobility_ …”

“I’m _not_ noble,” Ginger protested, but then eked out into a rather attractive groan as Miles pressed his thumbs into a tangle at the base of his neck, massaging it out. He hissed out a little noise, and Miles bit the inside of his lip.

“My _dear_ Ginger,” he said, “if you keep making sounds like that, I shall have to do something _dreadfully_ ungallant to you.”

“Promise?” Ginger whispered, as if frightened to let out the word, and then he moaned as Miles dragged a line down one of his arms, straightening and smoothing out the taut muscle there. He didn’t stop until Ginger’s shoulders and arms were smooth as butter under the silk of his pyjamas, and then he turned him back over, dropping down on top of him. “Will you kiss me again?” Ginger asked.

“You hardly have to ask,” Miles said, and did.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). You can send requests [on Tumblr](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask), too. Requests always open.
> 
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